Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Eighteen
12th March 1964
Tempelhof, Berlin
Fleur was sniffing at the fence post in the alley, the little dog found it very interesting. Marie Alexandra wanted her to hurry up and finish because she wanted to go back inside. She had rediscovered her love of Alice in Wonderland in recent weeks and was reminded that the blue dress that she wore was completely impractical for the wintertime. Though the Weather Reporters were saying that it was spring, it certainly didn’t feel that way. She was reminded of that as she felt the cold wind on her bare calves.
Momma had said that Marie needed to walk Fleur after she had one of her usual spats with Tatiana, probably just to get her out of the house. Her older sister had been in a pensive mood since they had gotten home from school a couple hours earlier and had been quick to anger when Marie had bothered her. When she had asked Momma what was going on, Momma said was that Tatiana needed her space today. Then Momma had rebuffed further questions, just telling Marie that she would understand soon enough. Exactly what was that supposed to mean?
Marie heard a door slam and Nadine Hirsch walked out to her car. Momma had said that their neighbor didn’t approve of them because of events over the last several years and that Marie was to leave her alone.
“Good afternoon” Marie said with a smile only to have Nadine stare at her.
“Aren’t you cold?” Nadine asked, “Where is your coat?”
“Upstairs, on its hook” Marie answered.
“Didn’t your mother tell you to put it on?”
“She did” Marie replied, “But I didn’t feel like getting it.”
Nadine just shook her head and muttered something about Katherine’s children being just like Katherine before she got into her car and drove off. With that, Fleur lost interest in the fence post and sniffing around the side of the garage that Marie’s parents used.
It was probably just as well that it was taking them back towards the house. Nadine was right about Marie being cold. With any luck Babulya Petia wouldn’t see her come in, she had funny ideas about the weather and liked to bundle Tatiana and Marie up in enough clothes to kit out an arctic expedition if it was so much as overcast.
Jena, Thuringia
Life had returned somewhat to normal. Kiki had gotten Zella and Aurora to back off Mithras for now. They had enough to put him away forever, just there were those other photographs that complicated matters. Kiki had never been one of those people prone to wild speculation about Governments being run by shadowy cabals or international banking nonsense. To actually see evidence of a conspiracy was something that Kiki was still trying to process, and she understood just how dangerous the situation was. It was one thing to want to be independent of someone, it was something else entirely to become a potential threat to that person’s reputation, fortune or even their freedom. Kiki realized that even though she was a Princess, they would have only the slightest hesitation in taking whatever means to silence her. They would have even less regard for her friends. Getting Zella to understand that had been difficult.
Then today, news arrived that changed everything.
The announcement that Sony was conducting a joint venture in partnership with Telefunken to manufacture video equipment for the European market. This also included mention that they were planning on building an assembly plant in Hechingen. When Kiki learned of that she was happy. It was something that she had spent a lot of time working on months earlier. Unfortunately for her, the Mayor of Hechingen called her apartment less than thrilled about this development. It was because while Kiki didn’t have a whole lot of political power in the Hohenzollern State, she had been able lean on him and the rest town council to approve the building permits. This was happening faster than he had realized it would.
Kiki had pointed that as an incumbent politician, bringing dozens of well-paying jobs to his town would serve him extremely well when he had to run for reelection. The Mayor made a comment about having the Princess in the Castle who was a hardnosed cynical Berliner was something that would take time to get used to. Kiki understood, his real concern was that the new plant would change the character of his town. She didn’t tell him that change was inevitable.
The next call was one that Kiki had not even thought about until the phone rang. The Sony stock was surging in value because of the announcement. The financial advisor that had managing her business affairs now that she had largely broken with the family trust told her that the cash dividend was going to be far larger than anticipated and asked how she wanted to handle it. Kiki said that she would think about it and call him back tomorrow.
Hanging up the phone, Kiki realized that money was the last thing she wanted to think about right now. Looking at the table where she had the books and papers from her studies laid out, she realized that she would be too antsy to go back to that now. Looking at the couch she saw Rauchbier sprawled across it, enjoying his afternoon nap.
“Does someone want to go for a run?” Kiki asked.
Rauchbier head instantly snapped up. He might enjoy having a snooze but a chance to run wasn’t something he would ever pass up.